Altruism Uncut

I entered the store and left the city’s noise behind me on the other side of the glass. Born in the last
century just six blocks away, I was a child of the concrete, but the shift in the air and in the streets over
the decades had caused me to imagine often that I was going to sell the apartment and take Marcie to live
in the country. We would shop at farmer’s markets and greet our neighbors by their first names and we
would never hear sirens and we would sleep with nothing but screens between us and the trees and
flowers outside. I longed to flee the concrete and walk on twisting dirt paths. I longed for the things I
would never come to possess.

He was the third one I had seen in as many days, and I noticed him lurking near the automated
blood pressure cuff. He was pretending not to watch the customers standing in line to pick up their
prescriptions. His eyes kept looking down at the red lines taped to the floor, marking off the proper social
distance in increments exactly as long as a grave is deep.

When he exited the store, I left my hand basket with its few items sitting on a display of contact
lens solution and followed him out. He heard the door behind him and turned, aggressive with his glare.

“Need something?”

“Yes, I do.”

His eyes moved over me like ants crawling on a discarded bone. “Well?” he said.

I looked around before answering, and I glanced at his hand. He wasn’t holding a cellphone. “I
need some heroin. Do you know where I can get some?”

His laughter was as flinty as his stare. “Sure. Need a nine milly and a twelve year old girl while
I’m at it?”

I turned away and his voice, softer now, stopped me.

“You’re too old to be a cop. Even a retired cop. Hell you want, man?”

“I already told you.”

He took a half-step towards me, looking into my eyes. “You ain’t usin’. Who’s it for? Or’re you
throwin’ yourself a birthday party and tryin’ somethin’ new?”

I could smell his breath. Unclean teeth and stale tobacco. I thought of back when crooked teeth
and yellowed fingers were as common as facial wrinkles. “No. It’s for my wife.”

He clapped his hands like a child. “Hoo-EEE, man!” I watched him mimic a full-body spasm,
turning in a circle, his calves beneath the baggy shorts no bigger around than a baseball bat, his dingy
hoodie flapping on his frame. Then he stopped and turned back to me and grinned through his teeth, and I
wished he hadn’t.

“Your wife? Your wife? How long’s she been usin’, man?”

I looked around again, checking to see if anyone had come up behind me. The closest people were
yards away, their faces hidden by surgical masks. “She doesn’t. She won’t even take a sip of wine at a
wedding reception. She’s sick.”

The scuzzy man stopped smiling. “Sick, huh? Cancer?”

“Something like that.”

He rubbed his chin with a dirty hand. A faded green tattoo of a crescent moon showed in the
webbing between his thumb and index finger. “Why don’t you take her to a hospital, man?”

I gestured with my head. “Let’s walk.” I took a step towards the corner.

The man shook his head. “Uh-uh. We’re fine right here. Nobody listenin’ to you ‘cept me. So why
no hospital?”

“I don’t want her last days to be spent in one of those places.”

He considered it with a slow nod. “Yeah. Hospitals, man. Bummer. They smell.”

I nodded, keeping my face neutral. “They do.”

The man rubbed his face again, looked up at the sky, then looked around with care. He shrugged,
his bony shoulders rising and falling like pistons. “Anyway, I don’t know nothin’ about no heroin, man.”

“Sorry to have bothered you,” I said, and turned away.

I was about twenty yards away when I heard someone trotting up behind me. I could smell his
breath in the same instant that I heard his voice.

“Hold up, man, hold up.”

I turned back and saw what I expected. The cagey, vulpine look of a man who saw a Sure Thing in
front of him. He licked his teeth and shrugged his bony shoulders again. “So what if I could get some?
You got that kinda money? I mean, y’know, no dis, but you don’t look like no ATM.”

“How much?” I whispered.

Caginess was replaced with judiciousness on his angular features. “Depends. How much you
want?”

It was my turn to shrug. “I have no idea. She’s in a lot of pain. I want her to sleep.” His expression
changed and I added, “I just want her to rest. So I can rest. It’s a lot of work caring for her. So how much
would I need?”

The man cocked his head. “You ain’t checked this out on Doctor Google? Don’t know nothin’
about it?”

I kept my face as expressionless as I could. “Doctor who?”

He grimaced. “Nothin’, man. Look. It might be that I might be able to get some H. Enough for,
shit. Enough for maybe five, six doses. To help your ol’ lady sleep.”

I nodded and asked how much that would cost me.

“Stamp bag’ll run you…thirty a bag.” He grinned again.

“And the, the stamp bag? Is a single dose? Enough to help her sleep?”

The man nodded, still grinning.

“Seems steep,” I said. He stopped grinning.

“You find a better price, go get it, man. Why you bother me, then?”

He raised his hands as if to strike, and the gesture made me flinch. “No, I just asked. I guess I
thought it would be cheaper.”

The scuzzy man sneered. “Yeah, well, it ain’t.”

I hesitated long enough to make my indecision look authentic. “All right,” I finally said. “When
can you get it for me?”

“Hey, man, give me the money and I’ll be back in a half hour.”

I shook my head. “You may have noticed that I wasn’t born yesterday.”

He looked around, then up at the sky again, looking for whatever guidance to which his soul is
attuned. Then he looked back at me. “You meet me here in an hour. Cash in hand. Don’t try to punk me,
man.”

“Don’t try to –?”

“Nothin’ F’get it. You just be here in an hour.” He pulled a cellphone out of his jacket pocket and
consulted the time. Then he looked at me, a thin smile on his face. “Maybe you need me to come home
with you? To show you how to fix it up?”

I nodded. “That’s an idea. But I don’t think so. Thanks, though. One hour. Right here. Right?”

“Don’t play me, man. You ain’t standing here when I get back, you better hope I don’t see you
nowhere else.”

“I’ll be here,” I said, and watched him walk with quick steps around the corner. I would have
enough time to get back to the apartment and check Marcie and her bed restraints before going to the cash
machine. I headed towards the parking garage, thinking of farmer’s markets and trees too large to reach
around, of bee stings and naps in hammocks. A girl was walking towards me, led by two chihuahuas on
leashes. The lower half of the girl’s face was obscured by a surgical mask. The dogs were wearing tiny
masks of their own.

Of course, I thought.

~ copyright 2021 by S.K. Orr